David Simon - Homicide - A Year On The Killing Streets

In the realm of American law enforcement, the deceit has been standardized. Inside every major police department, the initial investigation of any officer-involved shooting begins as an attempt to make the incident look as clean and professional as possible. And in every department, the bias at the heart of such an investigation is seen as the only reasonable response to a public that needs to believe that good cops always make good shootings and that bad shootings are only the consequence of bad cops. Time and again, the lie must be maintained.

“I take it the lady in question is already downtown?” says Nolan.

“Yes indeed,” says McAllister.

“If it’s the same girl as on Stricker Street, I’m going to bust a gut hearing about how every time she goes down on a guy, he gets shot.”

McAllister smiles. “If we’re all right here, I think I’m going to head for the hospital.”

“You and Donald can both go,” says the sergeant. “I’m going back to the office and get things started.”

But before he can do so, a nearby uniform overhears the citywide dispatch call for a multiple shooting in the Eastern. The uniform turns up the volume and Nolan listens as the call is confirmed and an Eastern officer asks the dispatcher to notify homicide. Nolan borrows a hand-held radio and assures communications that he’s responding from the shooting scene in the Central.

“We’ll meet you back at the office,” says McAllister. “Call if you need us.”

Nolan nods, then heads across town as McAllister and Kincaid go to the emergency room at Maryland General. Twenty minutes later, the thirty-six-year-old suspect- “a working man,” he is quick to assure them, “a happily married working man”-is sitting up in a back room, his upper right arm bandaged and encased in a canvas sling.

McAllister calls his name.

“Yes sir?”

“We’re with the police department. This is Detective Kincaid and I’m Detective-”

“Listen,” says the victim. “I’m really, really sorry, and like I wanted to tell the officer, I didn’t know he was a police-”

“We understand…”

“I had my glasses off and I just saw him coming up to the car waving somethin’ and I thought I was gettin’ robbed, you know?”

“That’s fine. We can talk later…”

“And I wanted to apologize to the officer but they wouldn’t let me see him, but really, sir, I didn’t know what-”

“That’s fine,” says McAllister. “We can talk about this later, but the important thing is that you and the officer are both all right.”

“No, no,” says the suspect, waving his sling in the air. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, great. They’ll be taking you down to our office and we’ll talk there, okay?”

The suspect nods and both detectives walk toward the emergency room exit.

“Nice guy,” says Kincaid.

“Very nice,” says McAllister.

The guy is telling the truth, of course. Both detectives couldn’t help but notice that the suspect’s eyeglasses were still sitting on top of the Oldsmobile’s dashboard. Parked in an isolated spot with his pants at his knees, the man probably felt particularly vulnerable at the sight of a young man in street clothes walking up to the car with something shiny in his hand. The victim on Stricker Street had the same fear of a robbery and, as a supermarket security guard, he impulsively reached for his nightstick in the back seat when the first officer jerked open the passenger door. Mistaking the stick for a long gun, the cop fired one round into the man’s face, and only by the grace of the University ER did the poor guy survive. To the department’s credit, the second shooting will be enough to prompt the deputy commissioner for operations to pull the district vice units off the street long enough to make changes in the prostitution detail procedures.

Over on the east side, Roger Nolan is dealing with the fallout from a triple shooting. The scene on North Montford is a wild one, too, with a young girl shot dead and two other family members wounded. The wanted man is the dead girl’s estranged lover, who compensated for the end of the brief relationship by shooting everyone he could find in his girlfriend’s rowhouse and then running away. Nolan is at the scene for two hours, prying witnesses from the neighborhood and sending them downtown, where Kincaid begins to sort through the early arrivals.

Returning to the homicide office, Nolan checks the small interrogation room, satisfying himself that tonight’s streetwalker is not the same girl whose customer was shot on Stricker Street. He checks in with D’Addario, who has arrived, and with the twenty-six-year-old plainclothesman who pulled the trigger and is now a nervous wreck in D’Addario’s office. Then he scans the bustling activity in the office and does not see the face he is looking for.

Sitting at Tomlin’s desk, he dials Harry Edgerton’s home number and listens patiently as the phone rings four or five times.

“Hullo.”

“Harry?”

“Uh-huh.”

“This is your sergeant,” says Nolan, shaking his head. “What the hell are you doing asleep?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re supposed to be working tonight.”

“No, I’m off. Tonight and Wednesday, I’m off.”

Nolan grimaces. “Harry, I got the roll book right in front of me and your H-days are Wednesday-Thursday. You’re on tonight with Mac and Kincaid.”

“Wednesday and Thursday?’

“Yeah.”

“No way. You’re kidding me.”

“Yeah, Harry, I’m calling you up at one A.M. just to fuck with you.”

“You’re not kidding me.”

“No,” says Nolan, almost amused.

“Shit.”

“Shit is right.”

“Anything going on there?”

“A police shooting and a murder. That’s all.”

Edgerton curses himself. “You want me to come in?”

“Fuck it, go back to sleep,” says the sergeant. “We’ll be all right and you’ll work Thursday. I’ll pencil it in.”

“Thanks, Rog. I could swear I had Tuesday and Wednesday. I was sure of it.”

“You’re a piece of work, Harry.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“Go back to sleep.”

In a few hours, when events again overtake the squad, Nolan will regret his generosity. Now, however, he has every reason to believe that he can make do until morning with two detectives. McAllister and Kincaid have returned from the hospital with the wounded suspect, his arm in a sling, and an interview is already under way in the admin office. From the look of things, it is going pretty much as expected, too. After giving a half-hour statement to Kincaid and McAllister, the victim’s most sincere desire is to apologize to the cop who shot him.

“If I could just see him for a moment, I’d like to shake his hand.”

“That might not be a good idea right now,” says Kincaid. “He’s a little upset right now.”

“I can understand that.”

“He’s very upset that he had to shoot you and all, you understand.”

“I just want him to know that-”

“We told him,” says McAllister. “He knows you didn’t think he was a police officer.”

Eventually, McAllister lets the suspect use the admin office phone to call his wife, who last saw her husband an hour and a half earlier, when he was leaving for a five-minute ride to an all-night video store. The detectives will listen sympathetically as the poor man tries to explain that he’s been shot in the arm, arrested and charged with assault on a police officer and that it’s all just a big misunderstanding.

“I’m going to have to wait to make bail,” he tells her, “but I’ll explain when I get home.”

No mention is made of the perverted sex charge, and the detectives assure him that they have no reason to want to wreck his marriage.